Obama's opponents believe what they want to believe

Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty ImagesPresident Obama boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base Aug. 19, 2010 to leave for Martha's Vineyard for a family vacation. Nearly two years after Obama's election as president, a growing number of Americans misidentify his faith as Muslim.

Nearly two years into the Obama presidency a substantial and growing number of Americans — now almost 1 in 5 — believe he is Muslim, according to a recent poll.

The survey, by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, was taken before Obama spoke out in support of the controversial mosque proposed near Ground Zero. So the number is probably even higher today.

Paranoia, rumor and conspiracy theories have always existed in politics. But the fact that this particular issue took root also reflects a deep and profoundly unfair suspicion of Muslims in America, and the shameless efforts by right-wing demagogues to capitalize on that fear.

Conservative commentators like Newt Gingrich now talk about Muslims the same way Sen. Joseph McCarthy once did about communists: “America is experiencing an Islamist cultural-political offensive designed to undermine and destroy our civilization,” Gingrich rants.

Others, like Rush Limbaugh, simply fuel the confusion for political gain with jibes like “Imam Obama.”

Presidents and their images have always been fodder for attack, yet the belief that a president is somehow concealing something about his origin seems totally unprecedented. During the McCarthy era, members of President Harry Truman’s staff and State Department were falsely labeled communists, but that accusation was never attached to Truman himself.

Maybe that’s because his American identity appeared unimpeachable: Truman was white, from middle America, a small business owner, a World War I veteran. He did not struggle like Obama, the son of Kenyan father and a Kansas mother with a funny-sounding name, to overcome “otherness” in order to get elected.

Yes, the fact that Obama’s middle name of Hussein and the fact that his father was Muslim probably don’t help clarify matters. Polls also show that as many as one quarter of Americans still believe Obama was born outside the United States, although his Hawaiian birth certificate is posted online.

It’s unnerving to see how many Americans are ready to ignore the facts and embrace silly conspiracy theories.